Cannabinoids are compounds derived from Cannabis sativa, an annual plant in the Cannabaceae family. The plant contains about 60 cannabinoids. The most well-known naturally occurring cannabinoid is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is used for the treatment of a wide range of medical conditions, including glaucoma, AIDS wasting, neuropathic pain, treatment of spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia and chemotherapy-induced nausea. Additionally, THC has been reported to exhibit a therapeutic effect in the treatment of allergies, inflammation, infection, epilepsy, depression, migraine, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorder, and drug dependency and withdrawal syndromes. THC is particularly effective as an anti-emetic drug and is administered to curb emesis, a common side effect accompanying the use of opioid analgesics and anesthetics, highly active anti-retroviral therapy and cancer chemotherapy.
Cannabinoids are increasingly being used for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications. Cannabinoid compounds used in such applications are almost exclusively obtained from natural sources, for example, from plant tissue. Thus, the prior art discloses obtaining cannabinoid compounds from the trichomes of the C. sativa plant using different solvent extraction methodologies. Some draw backs associated with such methods include poor yields, high costs associated with growing and maintenance of the plant and costs associated with extraction and purification of the plant extract. Security of plants is also an important consideration that adds to the cost of producing pharmaceutical grade cannabinoid compounds.
However, the increasing importance of cannabinoid compounds, particularly, for treating nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, pain, as agents for stimulating appetite in AIDS patients suffering from the wasting syndrome and for treatment of glaucoma have prompted the present inventors to develop an ex vivo enzyme catalyzed semi-synthetic protocol for the large scale production of cannabinoids and cannabinoid analogs. The inventive methodologies also permit the synthesis of cannabinoids and their analogs at reduced costs.